Fountain
Fountains, , are a dungeon feature represented primarily by a (left curly bracket), but possibly by a (pilcrow) or a (top half integral), depending on your operating system and options (see the note about symbol below). They are found randomly scattered throughout the dungeon, usually in rooms that do not have any other dungeon feature (ie: chests, sinks) in them. You use a fountain by dipping items into it, and by quaffing its water, and by digging down on it. Fountains have a 1/7 (14%) chance of being magic , an attribute that cannot be determined prior to use. Digging on a sink will create a non-magic fountain. Quaffing You can drink from a fountain by quaffing its water while standing over it. Upon doing so you get a message indicating the results. Magic Fountains If the fountain is magic, and your Luck is non-negative: In either case, the fountain will not dry up. Non-magic Fountains Quaffing from a non-magic fountain, or magic with negative Luck: Finally, the fountain has a 1/3 chance of drying up (except in Minetown, where you'll always get one warning) Dipping If you #dip a single ordinary long sword in a fountain, are at least experience level 5, and Excalibur doesn't already exist in your game, then there is a 1/6 chance of something special happening to your long sword. If you are lawful, the long sword is converted into the blessed, rustless, uncorroded, damageproof Excalibur and you exercise your wisdom. (In SporkHack, dipping only works for lawful Knights.) If you are neutral or chaotic, your long sword is cursed, loses its rustproofing, may lose an enchantment, and you abuse your wisdom. The fountain then disappears. If you were dipping in Minetown, this will anger the Minetown Watch whether you've been warned or not. In any other case, the dipping is handled normally. First, the object gets wet and does the appropriate things (scrolls and spellbooks blank, potions dilute, iron objects rust, lit objects go out, grease washes off). Then special effects can happen (only 50% chance if wetting object already caused an effect): Finally, the fountain has a 1/3 chance of drying up (except in Minetown, where you'll always get one warning); 1/6 if wetting the object caused an effect. Other fountain effects Digging down in a fountain square will likely create a number of pools in your vicinity. (Always if available space in line of sight. Never two orthogonally adjacent, never on your square, the more likely the closer to you.) The fountain is destroyed. * "Water gushes forth from the overflowing fountain!" (pool created) * "Water sprays all over you." (no pools created) The pools created can drown a pet. This does not break pacifist conduct or anger your god (unless you ride your pet into the pool). Gremlins may multiply in a fountain (you can use the #monster command to do so if you are polyselfed into one). This has the usual 1/3 chance of drying up the fountain, except in Minetown, where it is guaranteed to do so. You cannot engrave on a fountain square. Dropping coins (or objects) on a fountain currently has no effect. Minetown The first time each fountain would ordinarily dry up through quaffing or dipping, you will instead get a warning: ; 'The yells:' "Hey, stop using that fountain!"' ' : A watchman or watch captain can see you, and you would have dried up the fountain. ; "The flow reduces to a trickle." : You are not in view of the watch, but you would have dried up the fountain. The next time you quaff from or dip an object in the fountain (half the time if wetting the object caused an effect), the fountain will dry up. This will anger the minetown watch regardless of whether any of them can see you vandalizing the fountain in this way. Minetown fountains always dry up without warning when digging to create pools, or when the special effect from dipping a longsword into the fountain occurs. This also angers the watch. Messages The following messages all indicate there is a fountain somewhere on the level: : "You hear bubbling water." : "You hear water falling on coins." : "You hear the splashing of a naiad." : "You hear a soda fountain!" (you are hallucinating) Strategy Fountain quaffing Fountain quaffing is the specific practice of immediately quaffing from every fountain you find, in the hope of releasing a water demon and getting an early wish. In a lesser form, most inexperienced players will unintentionally engage in this behavior; this is unfortunate as most fountain quaffers die after a few hundred turns, but those with experience don't mind because they can just start again. This is a form of metagaming considered fairly low. It is the reason why water moccasins rank so highly on the list of top deaths on nethack.alt.org, and perhaps the explanation why quaffing from fountains in general is a leading cause of death there (along with deaths to Team Ant). Wizards who start with a scroll of taming, or a spellbook of charm monster are slightly safer in this practice. Magic fountain hunting Some players prefer to go hunting for magic fountains for their blessed gain ability effect. This is typically an early-midgame strategy performed after the player is confident they have 4+ Luck and can deal with any of the negative fountain effects they might encounter from a normal fountain. It is a good idea to protect your inventory from curses with a sack. The approach is simple: repeatedly quaff from each fountain until something other than "The cool draught refreshes you." happens. If the fountain is magic, the something else will be the magic effect; if not, the random fountain effect will indicate a non-magic fountain. If the fountain should dry up or its flow reduce, it wasn't magic. (Note there is no risk of angering the watch.) If you should happen to get a wish in the process, so much the better. Some players like to combine this with mid-game wish-seeking by quaffing from every fountain in the first 19 dungeon levels until it dries up, and only quaffing from deeper fountains until their magic status has been determined. Dipping for Excalibur An obvious strategy for lawful characters, especially valkyries and knights who start the game with a longsword. As soon as they reach level 5, they start dipping their longsword into every (non-Mine Town) fountain they can find until they receive Excalibur. At level 5, these combat-strong characters may even stand a decent chance against the more dangerous fountain effects, and the hoped-for eventual conversion of the thoroughly rusted, possibly now cursed longsword fixes these issues. Making Holy water A potion of holy water (blessed potion of water) is useful for uncursing and blessing items as well as curing lycanthropy and illness. Potions could be converted into potions of water by dipping into a fountain twice, and then blessed on an altar as described in the holy water article. Unfortunately, the fountain has a chance of drying up before you have converted all of your potions. The same applies to blanking scrolls and spellbooks. The solution is to stand on a fountain and dig down. The fountain will be destroyed with a large chance of making several pools of water. Potions can then be dipped in them without using up your water supply. Carry only items you want blanked, rusted or converted to potions of water, and jump into the pool. You will crawl out (and get a scary message). Alternatively, water walking boots let you #dip without getting yourself wet. Beware that potions of acid might explode, although not always. If you jump into pools, they will never deal damage, identify, or convert to water, but they might survive.Trap.c#line2723 Symbol :See also: IBMgraphics The representation of a fountain as a pilcrow, "¶", is probably not intentional. The top-half integral, "⌠" (some fonts may not have this character), looks vaguely like a fountain and is probably what the DevTeam had in mind. The problem is that PC character sets vary from one country to another. The symbol "⌠" occurs at code point 0xF4 in the PC code page 437, which is used in the United States. Most of Europe, however, uses either code page 850 (Western Europe), 852 (Eastern Europe using the Latin alphabet) or 866 (Russia and former USSR). Code page 850 has "¶" at position 0xF4, code page 852 has "˘" and code page 866 has "Ї". This script may provide a workaround for some Windows users. Call it, say, RUN-NH.BAT, drop it in the same directory as the NetHack.exe binary, and link the desktop icon to it: chcp 437 NetHack Encyclopedia entry References Category:Dungeon features